LOS ANGELES — Teams’ key players have intangibles. For Wayne Simmonds it’s his toughness and leadership. Ivan Provorov has an advanced hockey mind, 21-years-old going on 30. Claude Giroux can make passes few other players even see the option to make.

Goalie Brian Elliott is a key player for the Flyers, too.

“I think for Ells, he always makes that big save when you need it,” Simmonds said. “When the guys have confidence to keep pushing ahead and keep going forward and not sitting back, that’s huge.”

Statistically, those big saves are hard to find. Even after a 25-save performance in the Flyers’ 5-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings Thursday night, Elliott’s .893 save percentage ranked 31st out of the 39 NHL goalies who have played at least five games this season.

Elliott, 33, says he doesn’t look at goaltending statistics, at least not this early in the season. Good for him, because that would get under a lot of goalies’ skin.

“It’s really every day is a new day, every game is a new game,” Elliott explained. “If you get focused on that stuff then you’re not focusing on the right stuff. It usually works out in a wash. We had an 8-2 game (the Flyers lost their home opener to the San Jose Sharks on Oct. 9), but you keep playing your game. Those stats will get lower and lower. It doesn’t help, but you’re gonna eat some of those some nights and you’ve got to understand that when you’re starting a lot of games.”

He is starting a lot of games for the Flyers — 10 of their first 13 games — and the veteran of 12 NHL seasons doesn’t appear to have a whole lot left in the tank. The Flyers brought him in last season to be the bridge to phenom prospect Carter Hart. After abdominal surgery back in February, then another abdominal surgery and hip surgery again this summer, Elliott’s stamina is a big concern for a team that’s expecting to take a big step forward this season.

Elliott rarely takes part in game-day morning skates, his routine and preparation for a game being more off the ice than on. He’s been taxed quite a bit since the start of last season by a Flyers team that has desperately needed consistency from the position. One stretch last season he played in 25 of 26 games and in 16 straight. That was partly due to Michal Neuvirth’s wonky injury report and in part because of what Elliott brings the team besides between the pipes.

“He’s a competitive leader,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “He’s an engine in that way because he’s not a guy that’s barking all the time. He goes out, he does his job, but he’s competitively a guy that pushes our dressing room. When he can go out and have a solid night, plus give us a couple of the saves that he gave (against the Kings Thursday), that’s a huge boost to the hockey team. Some of the saves…when you’re playing against a group like (Los Angeles) where there’s a lot of crap going on around the net, those are battling-type saves and those have a way of lifting up your bench.”

Even then, the last two wins haven’t moved the needle much on Elliott’s save percentage for the season.

He looked like he wasn’t ready for nearly all of preseason and then put it together in the finale against the Boston Bruins. Like everyone else on the roster, after a win in Las Vegas he took a step back and is just now starting to come around.

“We were playing awful,” Simmonds said. “We were chasing on the outside, giving everything up on the inside. When you get Grade-A scoring opportunities against you time after time after time, there’s only so much a goalie can do. That was the first thing we needed to tighten up and we need to keep working at it.”

In recent games the Flyers have done that. They’ve toned down the chances against, especially the quality ones. In Tuesday’s game against the Anaheim Ducks, they allowed virtually nothing from the slot area. It was a taller task Thursday in Los Angeles, but the Flyers got the win.

Elliott was a big reason why, especially when the team successfully killed off a two-man disadvantage for 95 seconds.

Stats won’t portray that, but stats aren’t what he uses to assess his performance.

“I think it’s watching the games back, how you feel,” Elliott said. “You look at the games on the iPad and you’re never as good as you thought you were and you’re never as bad as you thought you were. So it’s really just breaking things down and just trusting if you keep playing the way you know you can that the wins will come and that’s the only stat that really matters, right?”